I was re-watching The Boondock Saints last night with a friend and noticed that racial slurs and discriminatory names are injected through the entire movie. It wasn’t tied to any one character, and breached more than just race. The remarks at the very least covered race, nationality, and sexual orientation. The movie even goes so far to have an entire scene centered on a discriminatory joke.

My question is, did Troy Duffy have a purpose/reason for the use of these, or did he just think that it would make for a better movie?

1 Answer
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At least a partial answer. In the director's commentary during the scene where Rocco is telling the racist joke Troy Duffy says, "I figure if it’s funny, screw you."

There is a lot of speculation online and in some reviews that having the Mafia guys make racist and homophobic jokes was just another way to paint them as "bad people" but I haven't seen anything from Duffy about that.